Hard Drive Question

[RadioHead84]

Ok since I built my computer(about 1 year ago) my harddrive has crashed 3 times. Mostly while playing games. Its a WD 160 GB SATA. All the times before I was able to get my info useing the PE disk. Well this time when I try to use it it doesnt even see the harddrive..and when i try to install xp on it just to see what it looks like all i get is 131gbs of UNpartitioned space. This has happend way to many times...After looking at my harddrive I find out the warranty is still good.

Should i RMA it to WD? I could still reinstall xp on it...but i had a partition on it and I really shouldnt need to lose all my info..this shouldnt happen.

Should I RMA it..do i have cuase?

 

[Ricemarine]

Sounds like your 160 GB is starting to fail... yeah get it RMA'ed.

 

[thejc]

Make sure your cables are tight...My HD was acting up yesterday and I was freaking out. Man was I happy to see that it was just a loose SATA cable.

 

[t0mn8r]

Always check cables first. If cables are OK use a DOS bootdisk and see if FDISK sees a hard drive.

That will tell you if the drive is even "there".

 

[RadioHead84]

But do i have enough cause to RMA it?

 

[V00D00]

If it fails, then yes. I recently shipped one of mine back to WD, but it was becaue it stopped spinning up. When it doesn't do that anymore, then it's DEAD.

Yours could just have some bad sectors on it.

I would try to run something that does a thourough scan of the surface and cleans out your bad sectors.

The only program I can think of this that does it very well would be SpinRite from grc.com.